


Ephemera

by NoirSongbird



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 21:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11494881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: There's a lot for Genji to deal with in the aftermath of Doomfist's arrest. Not the smallest of which is the loss of his one remaining friend to the time stream, because he failed to back her up.





	Ephemera

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of tossed this together after watching the Doomfist short approximately 300 times because I enjoy ruminating on Genji Shimada's utterly endless well of angst. Enjoy!

It was strange. Ever since Doomfist threw him into that car, Genji had felt like he wasn’t so much experiencing everything happening around him as he was watching a very immersive movie. Everything felt unreal. 

He wondered if this was what Hanzo had felt in those moments when his face would go entirely blank and he’d stare at nothing while Father or one of the clan elders tore into him. Dissociation, or something. Genji was pretty sure it was happening to him because of, you know, getting thrown into a fucking car, and how all the armor in the world couldn’t protect his still-human bits from the pain of that hit, so instead his brain said “no, not today,” and refused to process it.

It was also having a hard time with the other thing happening in front of him. Because that couldn't be real. There was absolutely no way that he had just -- just watched Doomfist grab Lena’s accelerator and  _ crush it. _ If he had, that would mean that Lena was just….just  _ gone.  _ Again. He hadn’t joined Overwatch - Blackwatch - until after she’d been recovered, before, but he still  _ knew,  _ because there was no training with or even just talking to Lena Oxton without being aware of what had happened to her. Which meant he knew the chronal accelerator, the thing Doomfist had just shattered to pieces in his gauntlet, was the only thing tying her to reality.

He tried to struggle into an upright position, because he couldn’t -- he couldn’t  _ fix it,  _ but maybe he could do  _ something,  _ maybe if he grabbed her he could anchor her somehow, he didn’t really understand how all of this worked (physics and mathematics were Hanzo’s department,  _ Hanzo  _ would know what to do, but Hanzo was gone somewhere, probably dead since you didn’t leave the Clan, ever.)

Lena was flickering. Not like she did when she blinked, or recalled. She was flickering in and out and she was reaching out to grab someone, anyone, and Genji could have sworn that she must have been trying to scream but there was no sound --

And she was  _ gone. _

Crushing despair and furious anger warred, and no matter how much Genji struggled, he just could not bring himself to his feet. There was something wrong with the implants in his spine - probably damaged, badly, in the fight, because Doomfist had sized up their weaknesses so  _ perfectly  _ and that was how he’d known to destroy the accelerator.

The utter helplessness felt crushing - there was nothing he could do to help Lena or to avenge her, because Winston was flinging himself at Doomfist in a primal rage and even if Genji  _ could  _ move through the haze of pain that was suddenly and without warning crashing down on him (wasn’t he supposed to be better than this? He was a cyborg and a Shimada!) there was nothing he could do that Winston wasn’t already doing. He’d already proved barely effectual against Doomfist anyway; there was no point.

Genji slumped back against the car, and hated himself.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t fair. Genji had a lot of time to ruminate on the whole thing in medbay while Dr. Ziegler and Dr. Lindholm put him back together again, because there wasn't much else to do, and what he was distinctly stuck on was that it wasn’t fair. 

He’d thought he was getting a new start with Overwatch, and it had even actually bene one, in the beginning, because he’d been friends with Jesse and gotten to know Lena and Gabe was a great boss -- but then Jesse quit Blackwatch and Gabe had unceremoniously thrown Genji out, informing him that he was working with Overwatch now and his services were no longer needed on the black ops side, and he’d found out that Hanzo was probably fucking  _ dead _ because reports out of the Clan were that he was just  _ gone  _ and had been ever since a few months after Genji’s “death”, they just hadn’t been able to get that intel until now because the elders were covering up his disappearance. His death. His...his probable murder, at their hands, but they couldn’t  _ say  _ that because Hanzo was the last direct heir and him being dead would cause a succession crisis so of  _ course  _ it was under wraps.

Through all of that, Lena had been a constant, a steadying force, a friend he could always turn to, a shoulder he could always cry on, a bright ray of sunshine when everything felt at its most hopeless and awful.

And now she was gone, too.

And it wasn't fair to  _ her,  _ either. Lena was just starting to get her shit together. She had a new girlfriend, for fuck’s sake, a girl who was a civilian, and who sounded incredible, from everything Lena had told Genji. Emily, was her name.

Genji wondered if someone had gone to give her the news. He wondered if anyone would think to. How many other people knew about Emily? A lot, maybe, Lena was all too happy to talk about her, but that likely wasn’t on anyone’s mind.

But all Genji could think of was how utterly soul-crushing it had been to find out that Hanzo was missing by  _ overhearing it  _ while eavesdropping on a discussion between Reyes and Morrison. Emily was probably going through the same thing - she’d seen what happened on the news, Genji was sure, and there was no  _ not  _ recognizing the accelerator. She’d have seen Lena just….disappear. And there was probably no one to tell her anything else, because Genji had no doubt Winston was knee deep in  _ fixing  _ that, and...well.

It was all too easy for Genji to imagine that no one was acknowledging it because they didn’t want it to be true. If no one told Emily, it wasn’t real.

Genji specifically owed Emily an apology. He’d been Lena’s backup, and he’d failed. It was only right that he be the one to deliver the news of what happened to her. 

Someone had to, after all.

 

* * *

Winston was incredibly helpful when Genji asked him. He knew Emily’s address, and was all too happy to give Genji a clearly marked set of directions to get there. It was obvious he wanted to go himself, but he had the much more important work of bringing Lena home again. 

So Genji hopped on a plane to London and felt like he was being smuggled in, because apparently the British government was still sour about their sovereignty being violated during the Null Sector incident (which was ridiculous, of course, Overwatch had  _ saved London,  _ but hey, governments) and was less than excited about the possibility of an agent in their country. It was apparently something of an effort to get Genji cleared, since unlike Lena, who came back regularly, he wasn’t a British citizen, but that was all above his head. 

(Jack, too, had been remarkably accommodating of this whole thing. Loss was becoming an all too familiar companion at Overwatch, and Genji suspected he was just glad to not have to do the notifications himself.)

He followed the directions Winston had given him, not bothering with a car because the traffic patterns were absurd and he rarely tired just from walking anyway. He could feel mistrustful eyes on him - so many people looked at his shiny new armor and thought “omnic,” and this was, he was well aware, not the place to be thought an omnic - but that just made him walk faster. There was no need for trouble, not here. Not now.

It took time, but he eventually found the apartment complex, and got up to the apartment that, according to Winston, belonged to Emily Adler. 

Through the door, he swore he could hear the muffled sound of news reports. He couldn’t tell for certain what they were covering, but he could make an informed guess.

He raised a hand and knocked on the door, and then waited. It felt like both an instant and an eternity, standing there, waiting for the door to open. When it did, a red-haired woman who looked like she hadn’t been doing much to take care of herself recently (eyes red and bright from crying, hair and clothing clearly unkempt and un-cared for) was standing there. She regarded him first with annoyance and then, upon comprehending what she was looking at, confusion.

“Are you Emily Adler?” He asked, though she matched all the pictures Lena had eagerly showed  him.

“Yes…” She said, sounding confused.

Genji dropped into a low bow, forehead touching the floor at her feet.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I was with Lena, in Numbani. I was her backup. It is my fault that she --”

“Oh,  _ no.”  _ Emily said, and her voice was tight. Genji tensed. Clearly this had been a terrible idea, he’d only upset her more -- he wasn’t built for apologies, for real honest feelings, anyway, and this was stupid and it should have been someone better suited --

There was a soft thump in front of him, and knees appeared in his peripheral vision. A pair of hands rested on his shoulders and carefully urged him out of the bow, and he found himself looking Emily in the face. Her eyes were terribly, terribly sad, but in a very different way than they’d been before.

“Let’s not do this in the hallway. Come inside. Have some tea -- can you drink tea?” She asked. The request was gentle, but firm, leaving no room for argument, only for a simple answer.

“Yes,” he said, slowly, feeling terribly confused. “I can.” He reached up and unlatched his helmet, pulling it off - because really, it was only fair that she see his face. 

“Good.” Emily said, and there was no hesitation, no flicker of horror or surprise in her eyes when she saw the horrible scarring left behind by the dragons. This might, Genji was forced to admit to himself, not have been a  _ completely  _ terrible idea. “I - I want you to come in, and I don’t want you to tell me how sorry you are that she got lost. I want you to tell me what Overwatch is doing to help bring her home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr, at [noirsongbird!](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)


End file.
